Mini Bio (1)

Eve was born just north of San Francisco in Mill Valley and was interested in show business from an early age. At 16, she made her stage debut after quitting school to joined a stock company. After appearing in minor roles in two films under her real name, Eunice Quedens, she found that the stage offered her the same minor roles. By the mid 30s, one of these minor roles would attract notice as a comedy sketch in the stage play "Ziegfeld Folies". By that time, she had changed her name to Eve Arden. In 1937, she attracted some attention with a small role in Oh, Doctor (1937) which led to her being cast in a minor role in the film Stage Door (1937). By the time the film was finished, her part had expanded into the wise-cracking, fast-talking friend to the lead. She would play virtually the character for most of her career. While her sophisticated wise-cracking would never make her the lead, she would be a busy actress in dozens of movies over the next dozen years. In At the Circus (1939), she was the acrobatic Peerless Pauline opposite Groucho Marx and the Russian sharp shooter in the comedy The Doughgirls (1944). For her role as Ida in Mildred Pierce (1945), she received an Academy Award nomination. Famous for her quick ripostes, this led to work in Radio during the 40s. In 1948, CBS Radio premiered "Our Miss Brooks", which would be the perfect show for her character. As her film career began to slow, CBS would take the popular radio show to television in 1952. The television series Our Miss Brooks (1952) would run through 1956 and led to he movie Our Miss Brooks (1956). When the show ended, she tried another television series, The Eve Arden Show (1957), but it was soon canceled. In the 60s, Eve raised a family and did a few guest roles, until her come-back television series The Mothers-In-Law (1967). This show, co-starring Kaye Ballard ran for two seasons. After that, she would make more unsold pilots, a couple of television movies and a few guest shots. She returned in occasional cameo appearances including the Principal McGee in Grease (1978), and Warden June in Pandemonium (1982), showing that she still had the wise-cracks and screen presence to bring back the fond memories of Miss Connie Brooks.

Trade Mark (1)

Trivia (18)

Adopted her stage name while looking over some cosmetics and spotting the names "Evening in Paris" and "Elizabeth Arden".

Often disguised her true age, but her tombstone was engraved by her family with the years "1908-1990", so she was 82 at her death.

One natural child: two girls and one boy were adopted. Her fourth child and second son, Douglas Brooks West, was born in September 1954, weighing 9 lbs., 4 oz.

Eve Arden was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1995.

Was ill with advanced colorectal cancer at the time of her death.

Starred in several preview performances of one of Broadway's most notorious flops, "Moose Murders." Unable to memorize her lines, she was replaced in the role of Hedda Holloway by Holland Taylor. "Moose Murders" opened and closed at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre in New York City on February 22, 1983.

While appearing in a stage play, during one performance she was about to launch into her big speech, as a wife berating her husband, when the prop telephone on the set rang. Correctly deducing that this was a practical joke arranged by the actor playing the husband, she grabbed up the phone, and without missing a beat ad-libbed along the lines of "Well, he's busy ... He really can't ... oh, very well ..." and then turned to her grinning cohort and wiped the smile off his face by snapping "It's for you!" and handing him the phone.

She stood there tapping her foot while he ad-libbed a rather unconvincing conversation, and then, after he hung up, went on with the scene as if nothing had happened.

She was awarded two Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Television at 6714 Hollywood Boulevard and for Radio at 6329 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.

Profiled in book "Funny Ladies" by Stephen Silverman.

Best remembered by the public for her starring role as the title character in Our Miss Brooks (1952).

Was a lifelong Republican and conservative who was a frequent White House guest during the Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan Administrations.

Was a longtime friend of Jane Wyman, who attended her funeral in 1990. Arden guest-starred opposite Wyman on Falcon Crest (1981).

Her oldest three children were named Liza, Connie, and Duncan.

Personal Quotes (1)

I've worked with a lot of great glamorous girls in movies and the theater. And I'll admit, I've often thought it would be wonderful to be a femme fatale. But then I'd always come back to thinking that if they only had what I've had - a family, real love, an anchor - they would have been so much happier during all the hours when the marquees and the floodlights are dark.